Juliet's demise
by Charlotte.H.Davis
Summary: Juliet's suicide retold. Imagine that instead of killing herself in her bedroom she went someplace remote and insanity takes its toll. This isn't a story about true love but of desperation, want and need. To become mad with it. One shot. Short. T


Juliet looked over her shoulder and not for the first time that cold night just passed twelve. She wanted to do this somewhere remote, out of view but not too far so no one could find her. She ended up committing the terrible deed in the old abandoned house nearby. The place freaked her out, floorboards creaking when no one even stepped on them, the curtains and wallpaper torn apart with claw marks covering the length of them. A chill wind seems to make everything move as she unsteadily walked into the old abandoned room. She'd chosen an old bedroom to commit her sinful deed. Her deed of lucrasy. She crossed the empty room, nothing inside it but a big, white-sheeted bed. She chilled at the spot of blood she spotted on the sheet. The wooden frame of the bed was frail and rotten, she wondered if she would sink right through it if she tried to lay upon it. She wondered what she would then fall into, a nest of blood-hungry rats? Or right through the floor too. She jumped at a sudden gust of wind, causing the sheets to rustle and more floorboards to creak. She took a shaking breath, clutching the vail in her shaking hands. Oh God, what she was doing for love. This love wasn't healthy or pure she knew, it was dark and desperate to the point of death.

"Good-bye." She said into the void of the world, her voice bouncing off the white walls. The room reminded her too much of death, a hospital room, a house for the insane. In a way, she was insane, insanity driven by love.

"Only God knows when we'll meet again." She said, not sure who she was speaking to. The emptiness of the place scared her, the silence taunting her, laughing at her, she felt like she had to fill it.

"There is a slight cold fear cutting through my veins. It almost freezes the heat of life. I'll call them back here to comfort me."

She voiced her thoughts,

"Nurse!" She called out, spinning desperately where she stood as if trying to find her, the vail still clutched in her hand "—Oh, what good would she do here?"

Juliet soon realised.

"In my desperate situation, I have to act alone. Alright, here's the vial. What if this mixture doesn't work at all? Will I be married tomorrow morning? No, no, this knife will stop it. Lie down right there."

She would take her life today, whether permanent or momentarily, if the vial couldn't, the knife would. She was ready to lay down her life, if she didn't do it now, she didn't know if she ever could.

Doubt struck as she laid down the knife,

"What if the Friar mixed the potion to kill me? Is he worried that he will be disgraced if I marry Paris after he married me to Romeo? I'm afraid that it's poison. And yet, it shouldn't be poison because he is a trustworthy holy man. What if, when I am put in the tomb, I wake up before Romeo comes to save me? That's a frightening idea."

She started to shake, her hands unsteadily gripping the veil, she feared she would drop it and if it did, all hope she denied there was would be lost.

"Won't I suffocate in the tomb? There's no healthy air to breathe in there. Will I die of suffocation before Romeo comes? Or if I live, I'll be surrounded by death and darkness. It will be terrible."

She couldn't stop the flow of words and doubt, she didn't know why she spoke them aloud, she wanted to end it, fast and quickly, without hesitation.

"There will be bones hundreds of years old in that tomb, my ancestors' bones. Tybalt's body will be in there, freshly entombed, and his corpse will be rotting. They say that during the night the spirits are in tombs. Oh no, oh no. I'll wake up and smell awful odours. I'll hear screams that would drive people crazy."

She fell to her knees, feeling the panic hitting her over and over again, she would be nothing but a corpse too. Nothing but another set of bones.

"If I wake up too early, won't I go insane with all these horrible, frightening things around me, start playing with my ancestors' bones, and pull Tybalt's corpse out of his death shroud? Will I grab one of my dead ancestors' bones and bash in my own skull?"

The fear of madness was messing with her head. She let her head fall back and let out a joyless, cold laugh. She raked her nails down the wooden balks beneath her, blood spooling from beneath her nails. She suddenly noticed a figure before her and she laughed again,

"Oh, look! I think I see my cousin Tybalt's ghost." She said mockingly at the misty figure that took shape above the bed.

"He's looking for Romeo because Romeo killed him with his sword." Suddenly she stopped laughing, she wouldn't let anything take away her love. She needed her love to breathe. Needed Romeo. Needed him. Needed him.

"Wait, Tybalt, wait!" She called after the ghost as it began to fade. She scrambled to her feet, wiping the hair from her face with bloodied fingers. She ran towards the bed, fist clenched with vial inside.

"Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!"

She said manically, eyes wide, body shaking, Romeo, Romeo. She jumped into the bed, on her knees, her eyes up to the heaven, a manic, hungry, vicious smile spreading across her face. She could imagine her eyes going fully black. She rose the vail triumphantly above her head,

"Here's a drink. I drink to you."

She said and drunk it down, still smiling that devil's smile. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell back into the bed, her eyes wide open and smiling up at the ceiling above. She smiled at the idea of the tomb waiting to come and Romeo being with her forever. Forever. Forever.


End file.
